“The rebellious tribes. I see.” I thought back to what Suhail had said in the garden. “And one such group is the… Banu Safr, I believe?”
Judging by the sharp look Pensyth shot my way, I might have been better off concealing my knowledge. He no doubt wondered where I had obtained it. “Yes, the Banu Safr. Old enemies of the Aritat, and therefore enemies of the caliph, because his dynasty took power with Aritat support.”
All of this was information Tom ought to know—but I feared that if I said as much to the colonel, I would lose this moment of agreeable candour, in which he was speaking to me like a human being rather than a female-shaped problem. And since I had already shown some awareness of the topic, I might as well continue. “There’s been trouble with them, I understand.”
“A hell of a—Your pardon, Dame Isabella. Quite a lot of trouble. Which is why I bring this up. I read what you and Mr. Wilker submitted, and I understand that you think you can make a valuable contribution in the field. But the Banu Safr have staged several raids on the Aritat in the last few months, and men have died. You must see my concern.”
I was busy biting my tongue over his phrasing, that I merely thought I could make a valuable contribution. I had to collect myself to say, “I have been in the middle of armed conflict before, Colonel. More than once.”
“All the more reason for you to exercise caution, I should think.”
“And I so shall.” I rose and crossed to the wall, where he had hung a large map of Akhia. “Can you show me where we are talking about? I know that Aritat territory is in the Jefi, but not its specific borders.”
Pensyth exhaled sharply. “Borders, I can’t give you. I’m sure they have them—they defend them very strenuously against their enemies—but it isn’t the sort of thing that gets marked on paper. At least not any paper I’ve seen. But here.” He came and pointed to a part of the basin between the Qedem and Farayma ranges. “This section, roughly speaking, is Aritat territory. And here is where the Banu Safr run.”
“Where have our dragons been coming from?”
This time his exhalation was more of a snort. “You have the records of that, Dame Isabella—not me. If it isn’t specified there, I don’t know. But I do know that this—” He tapped an area at the foot of the Qedem. “This area is absolutely lousy with dragons, so I would guess around there. They even call it the Labyrinth of Drakes.”
I liked the sound of that very well indeed. “There is your answer, then. The Labyrinth is farther removed from Banu Safr territory. We shall go there, and be safe.”
“You’ll go wherever the Aritat are.” Pensyth went back to his desk. “Even in winter, Dame Isabella, the desert can kill you very quickly. But once you find them—then yes, by all means ask them to take you as far from danger as you can.”
He had, clearly without realizing it, slipped into speaking as if I would be going along after all. I hid my urge to smile. This tactic can work very well with certain people: divert them with practical matters, logistics and such, and they will forget they meant to send you packing. By the time they recall, it is too late; backtracking will only make them appear foolish. “The sooner we depart, then, the better,” I said. “Our work depends heavily on the season, and I do not want to waste any of it.”
Pensyth jotted down a note. “I’ll talk the sheikh around. We’ll arrange kit for you, out of our own gear, though if we can get him to supply animals that would be ideal.”
“Thank you, Colonel,” I said—and then fled before he realized he had lost the argument.
Andrew was dispatched with us, ostensibly to provide a military presence in what was, after all, a military undertaking, but also—I suspected—as my chaperon. Although such measures would ordinarily have irritated me, in this instance I did not mind. In fact, our departure had something of the feel of a holiday: I was setting out with two of my favourite people in the world, away from the strictures of society, and I was going to see dragons.
I behaved myself, though, as we assembled at a caravanserai on the outskirts of Qurrat. Our traveling party was small, consisting only of myself, Tom, Andrew, and a quintet of Aritat men who would guard us and see to the animals. That latter was quite necessary, for the animals outnumbered the humans by more than two to one; the sheikh was taking advantage of our departure to send new breeding stock of both camels and horses to his people.
Tom, Andrew, and I were all on horseback, being wholly unfamiliar with the alternative discipline of camel-riding. “We should learn, though,” Tom said, eyeing the ungainly-looking camels with disfavour. “They’re hardier than horses, out there.”
We did not trouble with this for the first two days, being more concerned with sorting out other logistical matters. But on the morning of the third day, Tom approached one of the Akhians, a fellow named Yusuf, and asked whether teaching us to ride camels would slow us down too much.
Yusuf looked us over with a dubious eye. “It can be hard on the back, if you aren’t used to it.”
“The only way to become accustomed is to practice,” I said, in my most utterly sensible voice.
I was still dressed in skirts, but this was no obstacle to that day’s grand experiment. The nomads of the desert go about in long robes all the time, often with nothing at all on underneath—as I found out during my time among them. One has the option of a number of postures in a camel saddle; the truly skilled can sit almost cross-legged, with each foot on the opposite side of the camel’s neck. I opted for a more common posture in which one hooks a leg around the horn of the saddle, tucking that foot beneath the other leg.
The arrangement thus produced bears some resemblance to riding sidesaddle on a horse, which one might expect would mean I was good at it. In truth, however, I had not used a sidesaddle for years, preferring to dress myself in divided skirts and sit astride. Furthermore, a camel’s gait differs from that of a horse in certain ways… not to mention that their greater height and humped back leaves one feeling perched atop a very unstable hill, sure to fall at any moment. In counterpoint to this, I must say that although camels have a reputation for evil dispositions, the one I rode was quite agreeable. I will not go so far as to call her sweet or affectionate; she was clearly a creature with a mind of her own, and a somewhat unpredictable mind at that. But I have ridden horses that are far more intractable, and I appreciated her inquisitive nature.
Camel-riding was indeed hard on the back, but we adapted and made acceptably good time. This far from the river, the terrain was scrubby farmland, agriculture being scratched out of soil so dry it is startling it will bear fruit at all. One early afternoon, halfway through our journey, we entered a narrow valley with suspiciously straight walls. Much later I learned this may have been a canal, during the height of Draconean civilization. Archaeologists have found signs that the area around it used to be rich farmland, which of course requires more water, and there is a place that may be where the canal was breached and destroyed.
But at the time it was merely yet another bit of uninspiring terrain that stood between me and dragons. I chafed at the length of our journey, wishing with all the fervor of a young girl trapped in a carriage with a least favourite aunt that we might be at our destination already. Which is unfair to my companions—I liked all of them a good deal better than my least favourite aunt—but all the same, the days dragged by.
We might have made better time had we taken a barge upriver and proceeded from there. Doing that, however, would have taken us through the lands of the Taaruf, who are not on the best of terms with the Aritat. I began to appreciate that, although on paper Akhia is a single country, it is not unified to the degree that I had assumed. The current arrangement binding town and desert together has gone some way toward changing that, but the tribes still control their own territory, answering more to their sheikhs than to the caliph on his throne.